Foundry stockholders OK merger with Brocade

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Foundry Networks stockholders approved the company's with Brocade at a special meeting held Dec. 17. The US$2.6 billion union is one of the network industry's biggest .

A blueprint for Internet investment

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President-elect Barack Obama has been clear that investment in infrastructure -- including Internet infrastructure -- will be one of his administration's signature initiatives. That's excellent news, because the Internet could surely use some focus and investment.

iPod, iPhone, Airport issues dominate Apple support queries

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Looking at Apple's extensive support site, it's easy to forget that Apple Inc. got its start as a computer company.

Imports help boost one state's renewable energy by 70%

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According to a by the Massachusetts , the state's supply of renewable electricity increased by over 70 percent from 2006 to 2007 -- from 940,433 MWh to 1,606,396 MWh. That made 2007 the first year that the state's utilities exceeded their state-mandated minimum for renewal energy.

In Business, it's Better to be Mediocre than Great

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Don't try so hard, vendors. Because when it comes to luring customers, "consistently mediocre" tops "inconsistently amazing" most of the time.

Stop Accidental Touchpad Touches While Typing

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Raise your hand if this has happened to you: You're typing along on your laptop, when suddenly you look up and see that your cursor has jumped somewhere else in your document, resulting in seriously fouled-up text.

MS, Mozilla Release Browser Fixes: Download Patches Here

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Microsoft's is now available, as is a security update for Mozilla's Firefox browser. Here's a breakdown of what you need and where you can get it.

Sony VAIO VGN-Z598U Ultraportable Laptop

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The lightweight, ultraportable Sony VAIO VGN-Z598U has a base price of US$1499, but our review unit--packed to the gills with high-quality components--ballooned to $4450. Primary responsibility for the sticker shock goes to a pair of 128GB solid-state drives, which jacked up the original price by roughly two grand. But our test unit also jams a 2.53-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P9500 CPU, 4GB of RAM, and a dedicated nVidia GeForce 9300M GS GPU into its tiny 12.4- by 1.3- by 8.3-inch frame.

Report: Cisco among 3 bidders for Nortel's Ethernet biz

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Nortel is reportedly entertaining bids from three companies, including , for its .

Chess With Friends for iPhone

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The first thing you should know about Chess With Friends is that it does not require you to have any friends with whom to play chess. Chess With Friends or Random Acquaintances would be a cumbersome and stupid name, but it describes the app best--and highlights its appeal. It's the next best thing to wandering down to the park or local café and sitting down with a stranger for a game.

Joost to shutter standalone app on Friday

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Joost has announced that this Friday is the final day users will be able to use the standalone Joost client to watch online videos.

Job seekers flood IT staffing site

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Last month, about 20,000 people signed up looking for jobs on oDesk Corp.'s that links job seekers with employers offering contract work. It was the largest monthly increase, by at least 40%, that its CEO, Gary Swart, has seen since joining the firm in 2005. Swart said and he says he expects another 15,000 people to sign up this month.

How 30 years of Star Wars technology changed lives forever

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If you saw the first Star Wars film in 1978 you would have been dazzled by the awe inspiring technology the protagonists took for granted. Thirty years later and many of the film's forward-looking ideas -- from videoconferencing and mobile communications to robotics and bionics -- are being used in our daily lives.

Intel to show touch-screen laptops at CES

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Next month, Intel will show off its next-generation Classmate laptop, which includes a touch screen and new features that make it easier for students to use.

Outfox Adobe Bloat: Open PDFs with Foxit Reader

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I first ran across while searching for a lightweight alternative to Adobe Reader, which for several major revisions grew increasingly bloated and slow. Foxit fit the bill nicely, though for a few versions I still had to keep the Adobe product on hand for graphics intensive PDF files. Now though, Foxit is the only PDF reader I use.

Mash Media on Your iPhone with ZiiBii

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is a mashup of many different social networking sites in one creative and animated iPhone application. It combines YouTube videos in the categories of your choice, Flickr photos from the feeds you select, Facebook friend status, and any RSS feeds you want into either an ordered list, or a "river", which moves these objects from left to right in an animated style, and you must click on one of them before it disappears.

iSuppli warns of chip inventory tsunami

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The amount of excess chips waiting to be placed inside gadgets is likely to triple in the final three months of this year because demand is falling at a much faster pace than anticipated, iSuppli said Tuesday.

Lenovo Mobile's expected Android handset appears online

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Pictures of a Lenovo Mobile Communications handset bearing the logo of China's largest mobile operator have spread online, rumored to be proof of an upcoming Android handset that's based on China's homegrown 3G (third-generation) mobile standard.

Apple: No Jobs keynote at Macworld '09

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In a move likely to spark renewed questions about ' health, late Tuesday said that the keynote speech at next month's Macworld Conference & Expo will be delivered by Philip Schiller, the company's senior product marketing executive.

Apple at Expo: What went wrong?

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Tuesday's news that Apple had announced that Steve Jobs wouldn't be appearing at and that the company would after 2009 came as a shock. I'm stunned that Apple has taken a 25-year-old event that has been the single best meeting place for the entire community of users and vendors of Apple-related products and treated it like a piece of garbage stuck to the bottom of its shoe. But I'm not really surprised: Apple has been leading up to this moment for a long time now.

The end of an era for Macworld Expo

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For several years, trade shows—technology trade shows in particular—have been in serious decline. From Comdex to E3, large trade shows have been dying out or drastically changing their focus. Even hasn’t been immune, as the east coast show was canceled after the 2005 event. (The Expo was moved from New York in 2004, and Apple declined to participate in the Boston show that year; the show lasted only one more year before being canceled.) The annual San Francisco Macworld Expo, however, seemed safe from the troubles. For nearly 20 years, the January event has been the one place to see and be seen in the world of all things Apple.

AMD rallies in effort to reinvent itself

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Next year will be critical for Advanced Micro Devices, as the chip company pursues two major initiatives designed to reverse its financial losses and compete better with industry leader Intel.

Malware hunting

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OK, about now my editor is going to be wondering where on earth this column is. It should have been in his hot, sweaty hands hours ago, but as I was beginning to write about a couple of searching tools my Windows XP SP2 machine started acting up. Again.

10 Gifts for the Hard-Core Techie

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"Easy and Fun" Touch-Screen Kit for Netbooks

And the most trusted company is ... a bank?

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Considering all the these days it might seem somewhat counterintuitive for a bank to end up topping any list involving consumer trust.

God of War III: the last God of War game?

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A report on sheds some light on the forthcoming third game in Sony's action series, . The article reveals that Kratos' first foray on the PlayStation 3 is said by SCEA to be "the last installment" in the God of War franchise. This news comes to us right after the unveiling of .

MS: Aware of a disc-scratching problem before 360 shipped

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In an ongoing against Microsoft for compensation due to scratched/broken discs caused by the Xbox 360, a court document has revealed that members of the team were well aware that the drive could potentially cause problems to discs after the 360's release.

Far Cry movie at Uwe Boll film fest

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Notorious German filmmaker Uwe Boll, best known for adapting several video games franchises to the silver screen such as and , will be unveiling his latest movie based on a game, , this Wednesday.

Spawn movie sequel a possibility, McFarlane wants to direct

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A Spawn movie sequel? It's not as crazy as it might sound, based on the raging success of 2008 comics-turned-blockbuster movies such as Iron Man and The Dark Knight.

Boston Illegal: Will the RIAA get what it deserves?

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Did you hear that? A long low howl from the depths of despair. Yes, it's the sound of the record companies sinking ever further into the tar pits. And, strangely, it seems to be coming from the general direction of Providence, Rhode Island.

DTV brings more channels, but beware 'cliff effect'

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Old-school broadcast television just got a new lease on life with the transition to digital television (DTV) signals.

Wireless delays likely at inauguration

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Spectators attending the presidential inauguration of on Jan. 20 in Washington should expect some delays when making calls on their cell phones, according to the major industry group representing wireless network carriers.

Reproduction of 2,100-year-old calculator deepens mystery

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A new working model of the mysterious 2,000-year-old astronomical calculator, dubbed the Antikythera Device, has been unveiled, incorporating the most recent discoveries two years ago by an international team of researchers.

The top 10 Cisco stories of 2008

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2008 was a huge year for in terms of product transitions, strategic initiatives and business imperatives against the backdrop of a global economic recession. The following is a lineup of key events for the company as it closes out one of the most eventful years in its history.

MIT's sticky-notes killer

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MIT computer science professor David Karger's research team has developed software dubbed list.it that's designed to computerize many of the things people currently do through sticky notes: organize e-mail addresses, passwords and the like.

Economic trouble driving green IT initiatives

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is causing many companies to of initiatives, while a much smaller number of companies have decided to slow down their green activities.

2008: Yahoo's year to forget

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For Jerry Yang, 2008 was going to be the year when Yahoo's long-awaited technology and business turnaround began in earnest.

Cisco revs up competition with '09 blade plans, security

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Next year will see deliver a "Big Bang" in switching, blade servers for the data center, high-definition TelePresence conferencing for the home, and a security plan for virtualized and cloud computing environments.

Novell axes BrainShare

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has alerted customers and partners that it is cancelling its annual conference, which was to have been held in Salt Lake City in March, due to would-be attendees' restricted travel budgets.

Macworld Expo Loses Apple in 2010, Jobs in 2009

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Apple's decision not to participate in the in San Francisco is the latest blow to the decade-old trade show.

News of Palm's 'Nova' OS greeted with skepticism

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The news that Palm is getting ready to a new mobile phone operating system, codenamed Nova, at the Consumer Electronics Show next month has been greeted by skepticism from observers who blog about the smartphone market.

North Carolina power company may rent roofs for solar panels

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Duke Energy, a coal and nuclear power company based in Charlotte, may rent the roofs of as many as 425 residents of North Carolina to install solar panels which could contribute as many as eight megawatts to the community.

iPhone business apps go beyond e-mail and calendar

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It seems the iPhone can do everything. It makes calls. It surfs the Web. It plays music. It even plays games (the number of high-quality games on the iPhone is astounding, especially now that an iPhone version of Sim City is on the way).

Palm opens apps store

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Palm launched an online store where users can buy software directly from their handsets, becoming the latest phone maker to follow in Apple's footsteps with an application store.

High-tech cities included in at-risk list for DTV transition

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San Francisco and Seattle have been included in a list of seven urban centers with "at risk" communities for the February 2009 transition to digital television.

Macworld Expo responds to Apple exiting Expo

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I just got off the phone with Paul Kent, IDG World Expo vice president and general manager, in the aftermath of Apple's announcement that . Here's Kent's complete statement:

Macworld 2009 will be Apple's last

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Apple Tuesday announced that the January 2009 Conference & Expo will be its last.

Economic crisis slowing theatrical 3D transition

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The economic downturn means 3D films will take a little longer getting to your local multiplex. Or so says Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg.